


The Castle

by MissILikeTooManyFandoms



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Character Study, Danvers Sisters, Gen, Platonic Kalex, Pre-Canon, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-15 09:38:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7217266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissILikeTooManyFandoms/pseuds/MissILikeTooManyFandoms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The arcade has always been Alex's Fortress of Solitude but when Kara crashes into her life, nothing really stays hers for long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Castle

**Author's Note:**

> This was the product of an Anonymous prompt on Tumblr, so feel free to send me more of those.
> 
> "Kalex prompt: Teenage Alex is proud of her secret gaming skills. Kara being better than her doesn't bother her one bit. Nope, not one bit. Okay maybe just a little... or a lot."
> 
> I think I sort of went a little to angsty with this but oh well. I think there's a tragic shortage of platonic Kara and Alex fics. Hopefully I can grind out some more. Let me know what you think!
> 
> Oh, Alex in my head is three years older than Kara, basically. Or more specifically I've decided to have them have the same age gap as my brother and I. We're two years and seven months apart. So Kara is 13 when she lands and depending on where birthdays fall, Alex could be fifteen. So, I went with that and Alex like just turned sixteen in this fic. Or something. Anyway.
> 
> Edit: After reviewing clips from How Does She Do It, I caught the line "since I was 14" line so whoops.

Midvale might have been situated just outside of Metropolis, but the sleepy town barely boasted enough restaurants or anything at all to warrant a stop on the way to the city. It might as well have been in the middle of Kansas. Alex hated everything about it, from the sleepiness to the weird fake cobblestone streets. Yet, Midvale was just weird enough, just backwards enough to still have the one place Alex could seek refuge from her mother and the unbearable absence of her father. The arcade. Not a single arcade could be found in Metropolis. Alex had looked. Yet The Castle stood proud on the corner of Fifth and Main in Midvale, attached to the local comic bookstore.

The first time Alex had step foot in the dark, horrifically cartoonish castle, she had been six, enticed by the promise of prizes and her father’s smile. Her mother had trailed along unwillingly, but with a smile on her face. She even taught Alex how to play DDR, the only game her mother could tolerate aside from the four they had on the old Atari that barely worked back home. Her father, however, taught her how to play every game in the arcade, even the ones he barely knew how to play. There was just something magical about the dark yet brightly glowing neon cave and the electric hum that you could almost smell. They went back the next week and the next, after every weekly night at the diner. Alex actually started to like going into town. It meant ski ball, tickets, and terrible prizes her mother hated but she would give her tickets for anyway, just so Alex could get whichever stuffed animal or toy that would break in a week. Her father would let her win every game and smile at her, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he handed her the tickets he had “bet” on their game. Her mother could only ever be talked into one game of DDR but she always let Alex pick the song. Her father would cheer her on while her mother mock glared. The winner always got ice cream afterwards. Alex always won. They were always a family, always close, and her parents always doting, but The Castle represented all of it. Their happiness.

Then Alex started middle school and the arcade was no longer a haven, but a mockery. Suddenly, everything that had amazed and entranced Alex was a pain, an annoyance. She could beat every single game and the prizes were just broken toys. She was too old for toys, for shoving quarters into Whack-A-Mole, and playing DDR with her mom. Her father bought her a PlayStation 2, but her parents never played.

Alex never told her parents that her classmates had ruined the arcade, had mocked her and it until she could not bear to think of it.

Then Alex’s life turned into Space Invaders. She suddenly had an alien sister, an alien responsibility. Alex had been an only child all her life and now everything came in twos, everything was shared, even her bedroom. She carried the secrets of a dead world, a dead race, all of the secrets that could ruin a thirteen year old girl.

She ran away the first night. Though Alex supposed running away implied a destination or the intent of never returning. Her ten-speed knew where she wanted to go before she did, hitting the curb in front of The Castle. It was closed for the night but after staring long and hard at the faded cartoonish façade, she turned back around and returned to the house. It seemed only Superman had noted her brief absence.

She went back the next day and the next, her allowance and tutoring money turned into quarters. She had not stepped foot inside the arcade since she was twelve and with the exception of a few new games, nothing had changed. She did not really understand at first, why the dilapidated arcade was so nice, why she had to go, but she began to get inklings when she found herself afraid whenever others asked where she had been, what she was doing. Then she miscalculated. She lied to her mother about why she was no longer walking Kara home, no longer ensuring the precious alien arrived without incident. She had been tutoring she had said. No need for Kara to stick around. Then, because Midvale was that sort of town, tiny and full of people with nothing better to do than call mothers and thank them profusely for all the help their daughter had been giving them and “Oh, I am so sorry, I meant to call weeks ago, but we have been out of town.” Alex and her mother had screamed at each other for nearly an hour before Alex finally broke, confessing, revealing the location of her secret haven. It would have been better if she had just suggested that she take Kara, but no, her mother had to say that they would all have to go together, the next time her father was home.

He never came home.

Her mother started giving her allowance in quarters. Alex appreciated the gesture but also knew it was easier to send her into town with a few extra dollars than to actually talk to her. So she grieved alone in the arcade, forcing quarter after quarter into every fighting game, knuckles white on the joystick while her fingers pressed into the buttons viciously. Slowly, her grip eased and she showed the brightly colored plastic mercy, but she kept going to the arcade. Then, she made another mistake. It had been a miracle really, that Kara had never sought her out or learned where she always went to disappear, but after a particularly grueling test, she had forgotten she was supposed to take Kara to the comic book store.

“Alex?” She nearly snapped the joystick at the sound of her name, whirling and forgetting all about Pac-Man as she caught sight of Kara standing in the doorway, several comics clutched to her chest. The doors were wide open in the summer heat. The arcade was stifling regardless. With a glance over Kara’s shoulder, Alex surged forward, dragging her foster sister in by the hand before the kids trailing down the sidewalk across the street could spot them. “What…what are you doing? What is this place?” Kara hardly seemed to notice the hand wrapped around hers, focusing intently on the Pac-Man game as it blinked slowly on the screen, begging for fifty cents.

“Keep your voice down, freak. It’s an arcade.” Alex did not feel like playing teacher. She craned her neck as much as she dared, attempting to look out the door from her vantage point. She might not deserve the “Sister of the Year” award but she knew large groups of classmates spelled trouble for Kara. Normally her mere presence warded them off but she had not been there to walk her to the comic book store. After several minutes of waiting with bated breath, Alex relaxed and turned, the threat of kid shaped roaches seeming to have passed. Somehow, she had missed Kara extracting her hand from hers and the iconic sounds of Pac-Man which now enveloped her senses. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t know but it’s fun! I like this Pac-Man.” Kara certainly seemed to be enjoying it, her eyes noticeably bright behind her glasses even with the reflection of the screen glinting off of them. Her movements were a little fast but nothing really inhuman, much to Alex’s relief. “Is this like your PlayStation?” Kara spoke casually as her high score continued to climb. Not that Alex was paying attention to the tiny numbers inching ever higher.

“Uh. Yeah. These are like the first Playstations. One game per machine. This is a really old game.” Alex suddenly felt guilty for never asking Kara to play. She had asked a few questions but Alex had taken her silence as a lack of interest.

“Oh no!” Finally, Kara’s reflexes failed her and a lone ghost defeated Pac-Man. When the game prompted her to enter her initials, Kara typed in “KZE” with little thought. It hurt a little to look at though Alex was not sure why her chest felt tight and was quickly distracted when she saw her own initials at the second place spot.

“Hey! You beat my high score!” Alex stepped back as Kara suddenly turned, eyes wide.

“I’m so sorry, Alex. I didn’t mean to. I-“

It seemed as if everything that had happened in the past week, the past few months, and even the whole, weird, past year, had come to this one moment. It was ridiculous and finally the absurdity of it all hit Alex. She burst out laughing and wrapped her arms around Kara’s shoulders, squeezing her tighter than she knew anyone on Earth had thus far. She liked to think she gave better hugs than Superman, even if Kara’s comic book hero looked suspiciously like her cousin.

“You’re such a freak.” There was no venom in the word this time, not that there had ever really been any to begin with. “Don’t apologize. You just crushed me at Pac-Man. Great job. Let’s see if you’re as good at Space Invaders.” Alex flushed as Kara stared up at her, face open and just _warm_.

Turned out, Kara was even better at Space Invaders. And Galaga. And Pong. And Tetris. And Frogger. And Dig-Dug. And Rampage. The only game Kara struggled the tiniest bit with was Street Fighter and she still destroyed Alex every round. Alex had been a good sport for nearly an hour but her ego had been completely deflated with one fell Kryptonian swoop. She had to drag Kara away from the newer Mario Kart machine. Kara winning Rainbow Road was almost too much to bear.

“Oops. Sorry, Alex.”

“That’s what the blue shell does? That’s so mean.”

“Watch out for these banana peels, Alex.”

 Alex did not even have the luxury of blaming Kryptonian physiology. Kara never got close to using her powers. She was just better than Alex. It was infuriating but not in the way everything else Kara was better at was. Maybe it was because Kara apologized every time she won, as if she was taking something from Alex. Truth be told, she was, but when Alex saw Kara smile at the games her father taught her to love, she knew she was getting what was taken back tenfold. It also helped that Kara was absolutely hopeless at DDR.

“Just follow the arrows on the screen.”

“I don’t think this is dancing, Alex.”

“It’s just a game, Kara.”

“I don’t think I like being the controller.”

“Good thing we don’t have a Wii.”

“A what?”

“Nevermind, just dance.” Alex won all four games of DDR handedly but she found that winning was not nearly as fun as taking Kara over to the counter with a mountain of tickets. Kara had been too busy rushing from game to game to even notice the tickets Alex was collecting behind her.

“Alright, space girl, pick out a prize. We have…woah. Four hundred tickets. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten this many at once.” Alex usually threw her tickets into a bin on the counter for the younger kids to have but Alex figured Kara would be mystified by the odd, useless, and frankly already broken toys sitting on the shelves. Kara did not disappoint. Her eyes lit up the way they did when she saw food.

“Just one?”

“Well, you can get a big prize or a bunch of little ones.”

“What do you want?” Alex jerked as Kara blinked up at her.

“What?”

“What prizes are you going to get?”

“Oh. I don’t want any. Get whatever you want.” Alex swallowed as Kara stared at her a bit longer before turning back to the counter. Kara’s eyes raked over the neon cases beneath the counter, carefully studying animal shaped erasers and various pieces of candy. Once every inch of the counter had been inspected, she gave the same amount of attention to the larger prizes on the shelves behind the skinny, acne ridden college student running the counter. Luckily, he was more interested in his phone than the girls in front of him. He had made a few passing comments regarding Alex’s age in the past and for once, she was glad Kara understood very little of Earth. Though as she watched the Kryptonian tilt her head and consider her options, she knew that even if Kara was aware that the arcade was not age appropriate in the minds of most, Kara would think nothing of Alex’s interest.

“Um. Can I get that…um…” Kara’s face screwed up adorably. She muttered something in Kryptonian. She looked at Alex for help and only received an amused raised eyebrow. She huffed and pointed at the stuffed hippo, earning a laugh from Alex.

“Hippopotamus. Tell him you want the hippo. We’re gonna have to crack open that animal encyclopedia again.”

“I’d like the stuffed hippo, all of the Pixy Stix, and that Nerds rope.” Kara pushed all of the tickets over the counter with a grin, while the college student struggled to check Kara’s math.

“Typical. You know all the names of every piece of candy in existence-“ Four Pixy Stix were shoved in her face as they left the store, the guy behind the counter giving up after about thirty seconds, letting Kara skip off with her prizes. Despite her earlier words, Alex took the candy with a smile, which Kara matched with blinding intensity. After eating half of the candy and situating Kara’s newly acquired friend and comics, they clambered onto their bikes, racing back to the house. Despite racing through Midvale’s streets and the back roads to home, Alex had not quite processed that it was nearly sunset, much later than her mother expected her girls home. When they burst through the door, they were shoulder to shoulder, each chewing on one of the Nerd rope, laughing around the candy as they bumped each other, neither noting the look of worried fury etched into Eliza’s face as she sat watching the door. When Alex finally looked up, she caught her eye and when her mother smiled, Alex stood a little straighter, ushering Kara into the house with an arm around her shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm that weirdo who does math and research for their fics. Basically, Kara would have landed with the Danvers in 2004. This takes place in 2005-2006ish. The Wii came out in 2006 so I'm pushing it a bit but yeah.


End file.
